Montreal Canadiens' Bob Gainey: A Village Idiot at Trade Deadline

With the trade deadline over, the Montreal Canadiens came out without their No. 1 goalie and no help on offense.

A mere couple days after being on his horse while his jersey was retired, Bob Gainey looks as though he’ll be under the bus come tomorrow.

Cristobal Huet was traded to the Washington Capitals for a 2009 second-round draft pick while Pittsburgh traded their third and second line players for the highly-touted Marian Hossa.

The problem with this is that it leaves the Canadiens in the fate of two young goalies with no playoff experience in the NHL.

It’s not that everyone wanted to trade away Chris Higgins and our future players for Hossa, but the fact that teams loaded up with players that could indeed help their franchise move towards the goal of a Stanley Cup glory.

Sergei Fedorov, Brad Richards, and many more who fetched very little in return makes many fans wonder if we threw too much into the well of Hossa since we come up empty.

The main pill to swallow is the reason to trade the goalie that has been up and down but mostly positive in the middle of a tight playoff race.

This then comes back to last year’s problem with Mike Ribeiro and Sheldon Souray, where Montreal chose to hold onto Souray while Ribeiro turned himself into an All-Star in a Dallas Stars uniform.

Now with the giving away of Huet, they have received almost zero in return for the three All-Star players which makes you think about how much Gainey’s abilities are to find talent inside the NHL.

Of course Gainey may look like a genius as Carey Price or Jaroslav Halak surprises everyone and leads this team not only to the playoffs, but also to the Stanley cup finals.

Yeah it’s a pipe dream, but you have to wonder what exactly was Gainey thinking today?